Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a U.S. Army combat veteran, apologized Thursday for falsely stating he received a Bronze Star on a White House application.
Moore was deployed to Afghanistan from August 2005 to March 2006 and won several awards, including the National Defense Service Medal, but said on a 2006 White House Fellowship application that he had Bronze Star, according to documents obtained by The New York Times.
In an interview with the newspaper, Moore said he made an “honest mistake.” In a statement later posted to X, he claimed that he included the honor at the encouragement of a senior officer who told him he had recommended Moore for a Bronze Star.
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“My deputy brigade commander felt comfortable with instructing me to include the award on my application for the Fellowship because he received confirmation with the approval authority that the Bronze Star was signed and approved by his senior leadership,” Moore wrote. “In the military, there is an understanding that if a senior officer tells you that an action is approved, you can trust that as a fact.”
Moore said he was “saddened” to learn near the end of his deployment that he did not receive a Bronze Star. Moore did ultimately receive the fellowship he applied for—he was 27 at the time and working as an investment banker for Deutsche Bank, according to a 2006 announcement.
The senior officer Moore cited, Lieutenant General Michael Fenzel, confirmed the version of events to the Times. Fenzel added the he was unaware until this week that Moore was never awarded the Bronze Star and said he plans to resubmit the paperwork so the governor can receive the medal.
Moore’s purported Bronze Star was the subject of controversy during his 2022 run for governor, which saw him emerge as a rising star in Democratic politics. He has been a key surrogate for the Harris-Walz campaign in recent weeks—Walz said Thursday, in a joint interview with Harris on CNN, that he “misspoke” when he claimed in 2018 that he had “carried a weapon of war in war” during his time in the National Guard. Walz did not see combat.
In a 2006 Newshour interview, Moore failed to correct Gwen Ifill, who incorrectly stated he had a Bronze Star. That happened again in a 2010 interview with Stephen Colbert, on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, where the host made the same mistake. A 2013 column in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also stated he had received the honor, and Moore made no effort to correct it.
“I should have corrected the interviewers,” Moore told the Times.
